


What a Better Word

by milou407



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Brief and Referenced Blindness, Canon Compliant, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Ishbal | Ishval, Maes Hughes Lives, Photographs, Photography, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Dancing, The Mortifying Ideal of Being Known, Weddings, because FUCK THAT, implied nightmares, original child character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24957418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milou407/pseuds/milou407
Summary: 'He must make a disgusted face, because she snorts out a laugh, undignified and perfect. And suddenly, Roy can see the benefit of saving some images forever, to be revisited when memory fades, or just for the sake of it.'Or, Roy Mustang discovers photography.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Edward Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell, Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, Implied/background relationships, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 20
Kudos: 127





	What a Better Word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheFledglingDM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFledglingDM/gifts).



> I have arrived to this fandom a full decade late, with Starbucks, and I have no regrets. I did binge it over about two weeks, so if things seem a little wobbly, it's because I have no concept of timelines. 
> 
> The title is from "Little Amens" by David Hodges

**The first photograph: two hands, loosely clasped on white sheets. The picture itself is slightly blurred and not well balanced, clearly the work of an amateur. Regardless, there’s a certain softness in the composition that holds the viewer’s attention.**

Over the years, Roy Mustang has become well acquainted with his personal failings. He knows he’s hot-tempered, overly ambitious, and he can be kind of a dick. He just never though ‘coward’ would be one of them. But here he sits, his eyes kept tightly shut as the nurse unwraps bandages from around them.

Truly, he’s not even sure why they wrapped him with bandages at all. It’s not as if any surgery took place. Hours ago, as Roy was sitting trying to swallow his fear, Dr. Marcoh had assured him he wouldn’t feel a thing. Equal parts afraid that it would and wouldn’t work. The only things that had propped up his resolve had been a joyful call from Havoc a few weeks before, and Riza – Lieutenant Hawkeye sitting next to him, holding his hand. Neither of them acknowledged the contact when it started, but he’ll be damned if he lets go now.

So now he sits, unable to open his eyes and confirm his fear that even a philosopher’s stone wouldn’t be able to help him. 

_Tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap, tap, tap._

He jerks, clenching reflexively at the Lieutenant’s hand. That’s their signal, developed in the ruins of Ishval and steeped in so many years of blood and tears. This one says that everything is safe, that they’re watching each other’s backs. It’s what they would tap to each other in the middle of the night, when they woke with a gasp and a jerk, shaking the other awake in the small tent they shared. 

One for danger. Two for intel. And three for safety, for comfort. 

Three for home. 

Roy takes a stabilizing breath and opens his eyes slowly. The breath catches and turns into a gasp of shock halfway out of his throat because even half blinded by the light, he can make out some blurry shapes standing at the end of his bed, and one golden smudge by his side. He blinks, tears making the images even more blurred, but he’ll be damned before he lets whoever else is watching this freak show see him cry. 

The blinking helps the golden smudge focus into Riz- _Lieutenant Hawkeye._ She’s beaming at him, pure joy shining out of an open smile the likes of which he’s only rarely seen out of his usually blunt and reserved friend. It’s probably the most beautiful thing Roy’s ever seen.

“Fantastic!” Dr. Marcoh’s exclamation breaks the spell of that bright smile holding Roy hostage. Dr. Marcoh bustles forward to the other side of Roy’s bed and peers into his eyes. Roy flinches minutely, still unused to seeing again and having a near stranger so close to his face is making him twitchy. Dr. Marcoh doesn’t notice, too busy exclaiming over his medical miracle. When Roy looks around again, the Lieutenant is chuckling at him, none too quietly.

“What is it, Lieutenant?” He asks the question with a raised eyebrow and a badly hidden smirk. He can’t truly be cross when just seeing her smile makes him feel like he’s basking in the glow of an open fire. 

“I just hadn’t realized your spatial reasoning had deteriorated so quickly, sir.” She’s fully laughing at him now, but he can’t find it in himself to mind when she’s still holding his hand. “I’m disappointed in you, I thought you had developed echolocation to compensate.”

“What do I look like, a bat?” He wrinkles his nose. “Why would I need echolocation when I had you to be my eyes?”

Something about that surprises her, maybe the unexpected sincerity where there would have usually been a tease. She gapes at him, stunned, and he blinks back stupidly.

“Colonel!” He’s truly never been happier to see the Fullmetal Alchemist in his life, bursting into the room and saving him from the suffocating tension that’s manifested between him and Hawkeye. Even if he’s wearing a shit-eating grin, the one that routinely makes Roy want to punch him. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Roy decides to exercise his new eyes by rolling them, emphatically. “How long are these jokes going to last, exactly?”

“Until I get tired of them, or I run out.” Elric the shorter flops into the other chair beside Roy’s bed. “So, probably never.”

Roy twitches with annoyance which just makes the Lieutenant snicker again. He glares at her, betrayed, but she just shrugs. Like she’s _fond_ of Ed, or some other such horror. He turns back to Fullmetal and snaps, “What do you want?”

“Geez, Colonel Grumpy. I thought you’d be in a better mood.” He rummages in the bag he brought, fighting with something for a minute before he manages to remove it and tosses it in Roy’s lap. “I brought you a present so you’d stop being such a bastard, but I guess I should have known better.”

Roy inspects the metal contraption that lands on him, reluctantly taking his hand from the Lieutenant’s grasp to examine it more closely. He’s seen something like this before, but not usually so compact. “Is this…a camera?” 

“Good eye, Colonel.” Ed dodges out of the way of Roy’s smack. “It’s something Winry has been tinkering with when she was bored. Out of all of us, we decided you were the one with the most artistic soul.”

Roy scowls at him. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Ed shrugs. “Don’t know, that’s just what Winry said. Anyway, it seems boring, so I don’t mind giving it to you.” He stands and brushes himself off before saying, “I’m just passing through to visit Al. He’s back for a check in so I’m trying to convince him to come home. I’ll be seeing you Colonel, if I have nothing better to do. Lieutenant.” Ed exits with a flippant salute to the Lieutenant, and she barely stops Roy from throwing the camera at his back.

“That little shit – “

“Oh, shut up, Colonel. He did a nice thing.” She takes the camera from him fiddles with it, popping open the back to load in the film Elric had tossed on the bed. “And I think this’ll be good for you. It’ll give you an outlet.” 

He must make a disgusted face, because she snorts out a laugh, undignified and perfect. And suddenly, Roy can see the benefit of saving some images forever, to be revisited when memory fades, or just for the sake of it.

He puts his hand over hers again, callused and stained with powder residue. He taps in return, responding to her signal. Three times.

_Home._

**The second photograph: a woman’s profile, silhouetted against the rising sun. She’s resting her chin on her hand, contemplative. With the sun behind her, she glows with a certain strength, bringing to mind an avenging angel.**

“I thought we’d agreed that you’d stop sleeping at your desk, Lieutenant.” Hawkeye’s head jerks up from where it had come to rest on the stack of paperwork in front of her. She’s flustered for the half second it takes for her to recognize who’s standing in her doorway, which is the real testament to her exhaustion. 

“I’ll stop living in the office when you do.” She wipes some drool from the corner of her mouth and glares up at him. “And it’s _Major,_ as you well know, General Mustang.”

“Ah, you’ll always be my Lieutenant,” he says, coy, as he strides forward and perches on the edge of her desk. She makes an irritated noise when he knocks some papers astray, scrambling to put them back in order. “Come on, Hawkeye. Let’s get out of the office for an hour. It’ll do us both some good.”

She looks him over, assessing. He loves being the target of that sharp gaze almost as much as it frightens him. Riza has always been the one person who could peel back his layers and see what makes him tick. She’s also been the only person who’s wanted to. It makes something desperate in his chest tighten, the thought of being known like that.

“Fine. But,” She holds up a finger and suppresses a smile at his quiet cheer, “only if you answer a question for me first.”

“Anything you like, Lieutenant.” 

She settles back in her chair and watches him, remarkably well put together for someone who’s still in the office at four in the morning. The light from the dying fire flickers across her face, highlighting the studs in her ears and the gleam in her eyes. Sometimes Roy’s struck dumb by how much he loves her.

“Why don’t you want to go home, Roy?”

Oh, there it is. The familiar terror of not being able to hide behind a flirty remark or a sly grin. It’s softened by the flash of pleasure from her using his given name. It’s happened so rarely recently that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like. 

“What makes you say that?” It’s just the slightest bit raw, the rough edge in his voice betraying how unsettled he is. 

“You forget that I know you, General.” She rises and comes around the edge of the desk to stand in front of him. Like this, with him seated on the edge of the desk, the Lieutenant has a good few inches on him. She uses that advantage to step close and places a hand on his cheek, gentle in a way that would surprise most people. The delicate rasp of her calluses as she traces the dark circles that live under his eyes permanently now echoes through his bones. “You haven’t been sleeping. You want to get me out of the office, but I know you’ll be right back here once you find a roundabout way to walk me home.” 

He works his jaw, chewing over the possible responses he could give. He could lie, deny it all and blame the increased stress from his promotion. She wouldn’t push him on it, that’s not her way, but it would kill something between them if he were to lie to her face. Despite all their faults, and he knows he has many, they’ve always been honest with each other. 

“I can’t sleep. At least, not well. But you know what it’s like, it’s only restful a third of the time since our time in Ishval, less since the Promised Day.” She nods in response, tightens her grip on his cheek. Neither of them is a stranger to the trials of night terrors. “Now, when I wake and it’s dark, it’s like I’m waking up in that same room. Like they’ve blinded me all over again.” He laughs a little, harsh and self-effacing, turning away from the way Riza’s eyes have gone sad and soft. “I’ve almost burned down my house twice now, trying to light a flame in the dead of night just to prove that I can see.”

“I hope you have a fire extinguisher by your bed.” He laughs a little more, grateful beyond belief that Riza’s given him understanding, rather than pity. She pats his cheek and steps back. “Come on. Let’s go to a café. There are only a few hours until we have to be back, we might as well grab something hot and a nap before everything starts again.”

He catches her hand as she turns away and holds her. There’s no surprise on her face as she steps closer, but she does look quietly pleased. “Riza. Thank you.”

She softens again and leans in, searching his face for something as she turns her hand and laces their fingers together. Whatever she finds, it makes her smile again, and Roy thinks, he knows, he would do unspeakable things to keep her smiling at him like that.

The thought must show on his face, because her eyes go wider and he watches as Riza’s gaze flicks down quickly before meeting his eyes again. She leaves their hands where they’re clasped and uses her other hand to tilt his chin upwards as she leans down to press their lips together. 

It is, undoubtedly, the sweetest, most gentle kiss he’s ever been a part of. He’s surprised for the first second before his brain comes back on line and he leans up into it. It’s less passionate than he always assumed their first kiss would be, when he dared to imagine it, but the amount of feeling passing between the two of them more than makes up for it. 

She pulls away, breathless and with an uncertainty in her eyes he’s not sure he’s ever seen before, and the hand on his cheek disappears. He pushes himself off of her desk and uses the momentum to kiss her again. He kisses Riza the way he’s wanted to for years, over a decade now, but either because of the late hour or the soft feeling filling the space between them, it still manages to be incredibly gentle. They have time later for the rougher emotions of passion and want, and Roy desperately hopes they take _plenty_ of time later to explore both of those. Right now, at four in the morning, all he can do is try and show her how he feels. Try and share with her the soft bloom of understanding and love he feels whenever he’s around her.

He breaks the kiss with a soft noise, leaning back in to press their foreheads together to try and catch his breath. The places he’s touching Riza, their foreheads and the fingers that are still laced together, ground him. It’s a good thing, too, because he feels like he might float away.

There are a few seconds of quiet before Riza says, “If you try and tell me that was a mistake, I will shoot you.” 

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Definitely not. If anything, it was long overdue.”

It looks like Riza might be flushed, although it might just be a trick of the light. “Shut up. We’ve been busy recently, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I might have.” Roy kisses her forehead again. “How about that walk?”

She sighs, but the look in her eyes is distinctly pleased as she says, “Fine. I’m certainly not going to get any more work done, so I might as well come along to make sure no one gets the jump on you.”

He laughs and rubs the back of his head, watching as she swings her coat over her magnificent shoulders. That black turtleneck really should be illegal. “I’ll certainly feel safer with you watching my back.”

“Sap.” She gives him a warm look as she pulls him out the door, lacing their fingers together loosely when they’re out of Central Command. He smiles and leads her down the early morning streets towards one of the establishments he knows will still be open at this hour. The quiet steps they make and the little conversation they share settle in his chest, feeling something like gratitude.

She only makes fun of him a little for pulling his camera out when they get to the café.

**The third photograph: A window spills moonlight into a dark bedroom, cascading over a sleeping form. The slightest bit of blonde hair, turned silver by the moon, pokes out of the blankets. It’s dripping in serenity, a study in chiaroscuro.**

“I swear to all that’s good in this world, if you’re taking naked pictures of me, I will kill you.”  
Roy starts, almost dropping the camera. Riza rolls over and glares at him, just as terrifying naked as she is in her dress blues, maybe even more so. 

“ _No,_ absolutely not. I wouldn’t – I hope you know I would _never._ ” Roy drops to his knees next to the bed, entreating. Even if he can hear the joking undertone in her voice, he has to make her understand that he would never even think of such a thing. 

Riza sits up and shifts closer, smiling the way she does when she thinks he’s being an idiot. It’s incredibly attractive. “I know. You’re too smart for that.” She raises an eyebrow at him and he wants to kiss the curve of her brow. “So, what were you doing?”

He clears his throat, gestures helplessly at the window, at the light that’s gilding the room. “I was startled awake by a nightmare, and when I woke up and I saw you, well. The way the light was falling, you looked so peaceful. It seemed like something I should save just – just in case.” He’s not quite getting the point across, but he’s also on the wrong side of thirty to be admitting that he wants to keep a memento of the first time she’s slept over. From the way her face softens, he thinks she understands his meaning, regardless of the inelegant way he tried to get his point across. 

“Mmm. Flattery will get you nowhere.” She swings her legs over the side of the bed, the navy sheet sliding up to reveal miles of enticing skin. Riza pulls him in for a kiss and he quickly abandons the camera to the bedside table in order to get his hands on her. 

Roy leans up and into the kiss, hands landing on the inside of her thighs. He drags them up closer to the edge of the sheet, pressing her legs apart and reveling in the delicious shiver he draws out of her. He pulls away to kiss her hipbone, and smirks at the way she swears under her breath. “It’s a good thing I’m a man of action, then.” 

She tangles her fingers through his hair and drags his smart mouth exactly where she wants it, and he’s never been happier. 

It’s a while before they fall back asleep. 

**The fourth photograph: two people, dancing. The woman has her head thrown back in laughter, and the man is watching her with a smile on his face. She’s wearing a gauzy white dress, and he’s in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat. They both look incandescently happy.**

Technically speaking, their wedding ceremony and reception don’t happen as Roy’s been told they’re supposed to, one right after the other. They don’t even happen in the same month.

The ceremony takes place when it does because Riza is eminently practical. Also, because they’re disgustingly in love with one another, according to many of their coworkers, but the impetus for getting married is really because of Riza’s practicality, and her frustration at being barred from Roy’s hospital room the month before because she’s not officially his wife. 

In his defense, she announces these plans to him while he’s still on a very large quantity of painkillers following a near fatal stabbing and subsequent appendectomy while hunting some rogue alchemists. It’s under this context that Roy bursts into joyful tears when Riza tells him they’re getting married. Riza is still understandably concerned.

Still, once he’s able to stand without massive amounts of pain, he and Riza get married in a small ceremony in the administrative clerk’s office in Central Command. Jean Havoc is in Briggs completing a training exercise so Fuery stands up with Roy, and due to Rebecca Catalina being otherwise occupied teaching a long-range defense course and, Roy suspects, to fuck with him just a little bit, Riza has Alphonse Elric stand up with her. He is, as always, accompanied by his older brother, and Ed Elric’s wedding gift to the two of them is not calling Roy ‘Colonel Bastard’ for the whole of the half-hour long ceremony. 

For all that it’s a quiet affair, Roy is fairly vibrating with joy the whole time. In his professional opinion, Riza is never more beautiful than when she’s in her blues, and exchanging rings with her, even with the Elric brothers standing nearby, is the happiest moment of his life. Their first kiss as husband and wife is almost ruined by the both of them beaming the whole time, and he can’t imagine a more perfect wedding.

Jean and Rebecca are not as understanding when they find out they missed the entire event. 

“You didn’t even have a bachelor party!” Havoc exclaims, looking surprisingly stricken at the thought of missing such an unnecessary wedding milestone. Rebecca has been lamenting the utter _uselessness_ of the both of them, getting married at work and not even with dinner or drinks to show for it, for an hour now.

“I don’t really feel like I missed much,” Roy admits. He looks over at Riza’s long-suffering expression and grins down at the glass in his hands, light glinting off of the gold band around his finger. “We can go out and get drunk any night. That hasn’t changed now that I’m married.”

Havoc groans and drops his head to the sticky table. “That’s not the _point._ It was your last night of _freedom,_ and you robbed me of that. Now I have to hang out with an old _married_ man. You’re as bad as Hughes.”

“I’m terribly sorry for you,” Roy deadpans, taking a sip of his whiskey. He almost chokes when Catalina slams her hand on the table to get his attention. _“What?”_

“Since you’re both hopeless at celebrating huge life events like normal human beings,” Catalina scolds, sounding eerily reminiscent of Roy’s old schoolteacher, “Havoc and I have taken it upon ourselves to plan a reception for the two of you.”

“That’s really not necessary –“ Roy looks to Riza, who shrugs at him and hides her smile at his discomfort behind her glass. 

Catalina waves him off. “You won’t have to plan or decide anything, and we’ll keep it relatively calm. Well,” she glares at Riza, “Slightly more than five people will be in attendance, but calm for us. Just show up when we tell you to and act happy.”

Roy raises an eyebrow at Riza and she shrugs again, smiling more openly this time. He rolls his eyes and she snickers at him before schooling her expression into a stern scowl. She gives him a pointed look that very clearly says _be nice._

“Fine,” he says to Catalina, “But I reserve the right to complain if it gets out of hand.”

Catalina cheers and Havoc laughs as he slings an arm around Roy’s shoulders. “C’mon, Mustang, when have we ever gotten out of hand?”

Roy abruptly feels like he’s made a terrible mistake.

The party itself isn’t actually terrible. It’s loud and full of people, but it’s full of friends who are loud because they’re so damn _happy_ for them, and that’s not something to take for granted. After the last few years, if feels good to have a celebration, even if Roy feels uncomfortable being pushed into the spotlight by Havoc. At least the suit he wanted to wear was deemed acceptable, although Havoc made him shed his jacket and roll up his sleeves when he first arrived, which left him feeling unkempt.

It’s all completely worth it when Riza stomps into the restaurant that has been rented out for the occasion, floaty knee-length dress that Catalina most definitely threatened her into offset by the heavy military boots she’s wearing. 

Roy’s smile is half teasing, to offset the way his heart has just skipped about seven beats. He’s seen her wear dresses before, at formal functions and when she goes undercover, but this is something else. “You look beautiful.”

Riza scowls, but her heart’s not in it. He knows what she looks like when she’s truly upset, and this isn’t even close. “Enjoy this while you can, because it’s never happening again.”

“I certainly will. Come dance with me?” He takes her hand, chuckling at her dubious expression. 

“Do you even know how to dance?” She gingerly steps forward and lets him spin her into a slow waltz, completely out of synch with the music the band is playing.

“I am _offended,_ ” Roy says, pulling her closer and putting on a shitty, pompous attitude just to make her laugh, “that you think I could have risen this high in the military without learning how to properly comport myself on the dance floor.”

It succeeds and he gets to watch Riza laugh while they twirl on the makeshift dance floor. Her laughter fades and she smiles at him before shifting their stance subtly so that she’s leading him around the dance floor, instead of the other way around. “Unfortunately for you, I’ve never been good at following. Unless you want me to step on your toes, you’ll have to settle for being led.”

Roy takes brief stock of his life, and weighs the fact that he’s currently being led around the dance floor in the arms of his fierce, strong, beautiful wife, ( _hot_ ) and the face that their friends are all here to witness said situation, and shrugs. “There are worse things than being led around a dance floor by a beautiful woman.”

Riza has always had a solid poker face, but she has never been able to disguise the way the tips of her ears will flush when she’s flustered. “Sap.”

“Only for you, darling.” When she purposefully steps on his toes in retribution, Roy’s the one who bursts out laughing. He also prays to any god that might be watching them that he be allowed keep the memory of this moment forever. 

**The fifth photograph: a small child sits on a blanket on a grassy lawn. They’re dark-haired and bright-eyed, happily shrieking at someone off camera while clutching a colorful block. A pair of hands is reaching to pick up the child, and the whole scene is a study in light and promise.**

Roy is well aware that he has become a sentimental old man. The Fullmetal Alchemist tells him so every time they see each other, which happens often enough to be upsetting, and even Havoc has started agreeing with him. Roy is of the belief that enough fucked up stuff has happened in his lifetime that he’s earned the right to be a little sentimental about the good things. Thankfully, his wife agrees and generally lets him be as much of a sap as he pleases. 

She’s slightly less understanding when she finds him sitting on the floor staring at their daughter at three in the morning. She’s still Riza, though, so she just lowers herself to the ground to sit next to him and waits the silence out, her sniper’s patience being put to use even now, years after her training.

He melts into her side a little, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the sleeping baby that neither of them dares wake. She’s an incredibly well-behaved child, just shy of a year old, but the reality of her still terrifies the both of them in a way that war and homunculi never did. 

It’s not that Roy doesn’t want to sleep, or can’t. He should be sleeping, his body desperately wants him to be in bed right now, and will punish him tomorrow for sitting on the hard floor. But his mind still remembers waking up in the cold, damp darkness underneath the Third Laboratory, thinking he’d lost his sight forever.

He still wakes up in the darkness, panicking that he’s back there and terrified that he’s once again lost what he thought he’d regained. It happens less frequently now, but often enough that Riza still keeps a fire extinguisher under her side of their bed. 

In a way, Fullmetal’s casual gift has been a blessing. Roy carries it with him almost constantly now, and though film is still relatively costly, he’s built up quite a collection of photos, and he knows every detail of them all. Maes would be proud, he thinks, of how many are of Riza and Elizabeth, or the three of them together. 

The pictures are an outlet for that unending, needling anxiety that all he has is temporary, that as easily as his sight was given back to him, it can be taken away again. They’ll be useless to him if his sight is taken from him, but he still studies them like flashcards until each and every detail is ingrained in his memory and the physical photograph itself is nothing more than a prop. If he has the images already memorized, then he needn’t fear having his vision taken away, because he’ll still be able to remember the sight of what’s dear to him. In theory, anyway.

He finally clears his throat to break the silence. Quietly, though; there’s still a baby sleeping. “I don’t think I will ever get tired of looking at her,” he says, “and even if I sit here forever, it still won’t be enough.”

Riza, because she’s wonderful and knows him too well just says “I know,” a tenderness in her voice that her new recruits would never believe and which only seems to surface in the wee hours of the morning. “But she needs you to get your rest. She’ll still be here tomorrow.” 

Roy swallows against a lump in his throat and nods, rising to his feet with more difficulty than he expects, knees cracking. He offers Riza a hand and she accepts gracefully, allowing herself to be pulled into a brief hug before leading them both out and down the hall to their bedroom. It’s not until he’s safely back in bed, laying with Riza’s back pressed to his chest that Roy replies, “Is it really her that needs me well-rested, or is it you?”

Riza rolls over so he can feel her smirk where it’s pressed into his shoulder in the darkness of their bedroom. “Why not both? We’ve got company coming tomorrow for lunch and no one wants to deal with Colonel Grumpy.”

“That’s General Grumpy to you.” Roy huffs and sinks further into the pillows, heartbeat finally slowing in the safety of their bed.

“Mmm, no. I don’t do alliteration. If you’re going to be called ‘General’, I think we’re going to have to call you General Bastard, like Ed suggested.” Although he knows she’s teasing, Roy still shudders and turns away from her. 

“I thought we agreed not to mention the Fullmetal Alchemist in bed.” Her laugh is quiet enough to not disturb the baby, but it still reverberates where Riza’s now pressed up against his back, face mashed into the skin of his back between his shoulder blades. 

“Fine, fine, you’re right.” He feels a kiss pressed to the back of his neck and Riza settles behind him, an arm around his waist. “Go to sleep, Roy. We’ll still be here tomorrow.”

Roy thinks of the photographs he keeps in his breast pocket, the ones he knows better than the back of his hand, and goes to sleep, comforted.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for TheFledglingDM, who let me yell at her about it until I cried. Thanks ever so much.
> 
> I needed soft!Roy desperately, so I wrote some.
> 
> Kudos are always appreciated, and leave a comment to yell at me about these two and how in love they are!! Please! I'm crying constantly about them!!!!!


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